Photoshop? LR? Elements? Premier?

Duke

Mountain Carver
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OK, so I have searched and searched and see that this question is on the web 6.02^23 times but i have yet to see the answer. Which?? I am using PS2 right now for stills and WLMM for video. I have seen that Adobe now offers Photoshop ELEMENTS and Premier ELEMENTS in a package deal. Looks enticing, but I don't know what PS2 features i would lose out on. Or maybe the 2012 version of elements is better than the very old PS that I have? I am far from a pro (it appears that most of you are actual pros) so there is just NO way I could justify the OUTRAGEOUS price for PS6 or the full Premier. I keep hearing and seeing things about LR, but each time I look at it I just see "batch processing" and "organization" listed as reasons to get it. PS batch processes and the number of amateur pics that I shoot can easily fit in a folder for each month, within a folder for that year. I am not going to sell stock photos so I won't need to tag them with words like "Waterfall" or "Decapitation" or similar just to easily search and find all of those later. Then again?? For editing I get most of what I want from ACR and don't do much more in PS other than using the levels histogram to remove color noise, monkey with some HDR, cropping, etc. ACR is invaluable for me though. I think Elements would likely be way more than I need but I don't know because I have never used it and cannot find a comprehensive listing of what i would miss out on. And....I do want to "expand my horizons" with photography since I have just been getting into it this last year or two. In WLMM I do little more than clip, connect, slomo, music, intro, etc, but part of that is because WLMM doesn't do much more than that. I do want to expand in that area.

What is it about PS6 that had all (or most) of you jumping right on it as soon as it came out? is it really worth $500 xtra? Why not LR....or maybe you use that too? If so, why both? And, what do you use for video? I am interested in high detail, super slomo, but see that even with Premier I would have to buy a $100 add on called Twixtor for that. $600 for software and then it needs a $100 add on? Thats like putting water in a plastic bottle and selling it at gas stations for $2 each. ?
 
Although the price might look enticing, I wouldn't waste time with the Elements package. You're already running PS2, so no need to backtrack to Photoshop Elements. I haven't used Premier Elements, but there are baaaad reviews all over the web. I'm using Premier Pro now, and yes, it's a beautiful beast of a program. Go for it if you can afford it. It's considered by many to be the industry standard for a reason. If you can't afford it, there are a few programs that get higher marks than Premier Elements; personally, I had great success with Corel VideoStudio Pro before getting my hands on Premier Pro. It's very intuitive and unbelievably non-buggy and smooth for software in that price-range. I found it to be a great step up from WLMM.

Can't say much for PS6 yet, as I just began playing with it. But PS has evolved greatly since PS2....I'd think that the improvements in Adobe Camera Raw alone would be worth the jump, not to mention how much snappier it's going to run for you (depends on system, of course). They're always tweaking and improving all the small/big features like panning, cloning, layers, and masks, etc...One may not notice a huge difference between CS5 and CS6, but between CS2 and CS6 is a different story. Not night and day, but *significant*.

As far as Lightroom goes.....Just get it. Or Aperture if you're on a Mac. As far as photo software goes, you get more bang for your buck from this program than any other. So incredibly handy for file organization and *very* powerful in terms of extremely simple, non-destructive photo-editing. Think of Photoshop as your slightly complex, creative genius that pulls off the big moves, and Lightroom as your highly organized file secretary. They work very well together.
 
I'm still a LR holdout. But I'll echo what's already been said: newer versions of ACR are a major upgrade. For you with cost as a factor, I'd go to LR. You'll get greatly upgraded tools and flexibility over plane-jane CS2.
 
I second/third/fourth the response that you need an image organizer/processor more or higher priority than you need a dedicated image processor. I use Apple Aperture to organize my 40K+ images and do most of my image processing in it (levels, saturation, cropping, resizing, etc.). It is non destructive so you NEVER lose your original artwork. I then occasionally use Photoshop to do advanced processing work. That work flow works for me the best. I feel like my whole life is in Aperture. I love the program but it has had some rare problems that needed troubleshot and corrected. I upgraded from ThumbsPlus on Windows to Aperture on Mac and never looked back. At that time I thoroughly evaluated Adobe Light Room and found it inferior at that time (several years ago) for my needs. Organization is key and any organization tool, especially Aperture, is your friend.
 
What program is ACR or are you referring to camera RAW?
 
ACR = Adobe Camera Raw
 
Yes, ACR is in PS2. Oddly I cannot figure out how to open it other than to click on a raw image. Otherwise it remains cleverly hidden somewhere within the program. One of the pains with the older PS2 is that it cannot read my CR2 raw images. After quite a bit of frustration and conversion using the Canon software first, I finally found the Adobe Digital Negative Converter. this can batch convert a folder full of CR2 files to Digital Negatives; at which time i can open them with my "old as my Grandma" PS2. I then delete the CR2 files. This is not too painful, but still adds to my desire to upgrade and it sounds like LR is the ticket.

I did not get much feedback on the video part. Are all of you still shot people only? I am leaning towards Sony Vegas Platinum if I don't go with an Adobe package deal.
 
My .02 on this subject...

Like langutah, I'm a big fan of Apple's Aperture software. But since not everyone is cool enough to own a Mac, I guess Lightroom is okay too. :lol: But seriously, whenever I hear about someone who is in to taking photos that doesn't use a cataloging and editing program like Aperture or Lightoom, I cringe. Yes, some of them still turn out amazing images but I feel at a much higher cost of time and energy.

Like Dan and Bill, I do at least 90% of my editing in Aperture, if not much more. Throw in some killer plugins like the Nik Efex package and you almost don't need Photoshop.

As for video, I use Premiere Pro but I got a special deal on it. I couldn't justify actually ponying up $600. The new creative cloud could be a reasonable option though. Pretty easy to get a deal for $30 a month for the first year, $50 a month after that and that gives you the entire creative suite master collection. I believe backcountrypost is setup as an affiliate with Adobe so if anyone needs a coupon for that, let me know and I'll post a link.
 
Yes, ACR is in PS2. Oddly I cannot figure out how to open it other than to click on a raw image. Otherwise it remains cleverly hidden somewhere within the program.

ACR has grown with each iteration of PS. The ACR that ships with more recent versions is much more capable than the version bundled with CS2. Camera raw is also not a standard format, so unless you keep "feeding" ACR or other editing programs updates (usually free), they won't be able to understand the raw files produced by newer cameras.
 
There's a $400 coupon on Photoshop that knocks 73% off the price, bringing it down to about $190. Good through 8/31. Go find this forum's Amazon referral link: Photoshop CS6, add PS CS6 Win or Mac to your cart, and apply coupon code KNDJ-6E6ADN-6A93NF at checkout.
 
Just an update and bump on this post: For video: Sony Vegas Movie Sutdio HD Platinum came out with version 12 about the time I posted this. This resulted in version 11 being priced to dump what was left and I snagged it. I like it very much. Steep learning curve though. My only complaint so far is that since I don't have the Pro version I cannot do velocity curves and can only slow down to .25 speed. Limiting the slomo to .25 is pretty wimpy since the program can easily go slower and the .25 brick wall is just and intentional limit on the non pro version. In fact it annoys me more as I type it. But, overall happy with the software. I did finally realize that what I really needed is/was a new computer. Mine was only 3 years old but HD video just does not go well on anything that is not up to par. So, I got a new one with an i7 and 8G ram. Finally I can handle loading and editing more than 6 mins of HD video.

Neiloro, thanks for the coupon tip. I was on the edge of purchasing and in trying to decide even added it to my cart but just couldn't proceed to the end with that giant price staring at me. In other words I never got far enough to type the coupon in to see if it works for fear that I would accidentally proceed with the $600 purchase and would then have to spend 2 months hiding from Mrs "Duke". And, I dumped my money into the computer anyway. So, I decided to just get LR4 but the reviews talking about how it ends up slowing down to a snails speed after 1/2 hr have me a bit worried and so I have spent a month lurking on reviews and wallowing in my indecisiveness. It seems I am treating this like buying a car!
 
The various brushes for burning, dodging, saturation, contrast etc in Aperture are very intuitive and powerful. I only use PS if my lines (shooting architecture) are not parallel, if not I have no need for PS.
 
... So, I decided to just get LR4 but the reviews talking about how it ends up slowing down to a snails speed after 1/2 hr have me a bit worried and so I have spent a month lurking on reviews and wallowing in my indecisiveness. It seems I am treating this like buying a car!

I have never experienced any slowness in Lightroom. If you're worried about it, though, there are some tips about it here.
 
I have both Aperture and LR4 and always use LR4. I got them both for about the same price. They are very similarin how they work but I find LR4 has better options and gives better results. I passed on PS6 because I just don't need the majority of the applications. LR4 has never slowed on me but I don't know if it works better on a Mac or not.
 
Some of you guys may be very interested in Adobe's temporary, new upgrade offer. A 50% reduction on the Photoshop CC subscription price and they are throwing in Light Room!

Thank you for the info. I am always interested i hearing about offers and your post is appreciated.

I have yet to embrace the monthly fee model that Adobe is now insisting on. I'm sure this will be the way of the future, likely for all software and many others seem fine with it. And for this one, someone like me.... with the old, CS2 cannot upgrade on this plan.

It is lame that Adobe has such a monopoly grip on the post processing world. But, I do love LR4 which I eventually acquired......ON A DISK!
 
I recently quit my job and as a result I'm now paying my own monthly fee for Creative Cloud. Anyone else a sucker like me? Are there any other options nowadays to still use stuff like Photoshop and Premiere?
 

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